


The Best Way to Overcome Stage Fright

by ratherbehere



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherbehere/pseuds/ratherbehere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is the lead in his high school's production of Hamlet, but he has crippling stage fright. Perhaps Dean can help him overcome it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Way to Overcome Stage Fright

“Dean, I’m going to puke,” Castiel said flatly.

It was two minutes to curtain time, and Castiel still isn’t sure how he ended up in this position. He seems to remember goofing off with his friends when they all proclaimed him a brilliant actor and forced him to audition for the Spring play. He went along with it despite his crippling stage fright and selective social anxieties because getting a part in the plays at Lawrence High was next to impossible, and even harder if you were senior that hadn’t been in the program before.

Except, of course, it would turn out his friends were right, he is a great actor, and he was cast in the lead role.

Then it turned out practice was actually kind of fun. It didn’t take him long to realize that acting from a script with peers, peers that admired and encouraged him, was no problem at all.

He failed to consider that one day he would have to do that acting  _in front of an audience_.

“You’re going to be great, Cas,” Dean said, wrapping his hands around Castiel’s upper arms and holding him tight, forcing Castiel to meet his eyes. “You’ve got this in the bag.”

Castiel shook his head though, and lamented with panic filled eyes, “What if I screw up? The school will mock me Dean! It would be unbearable. I’d have to leave. I’d have to transfer. I’d-“

“Cas!” Dean called, shaking him slightly and leaning in even closer. “Stop that. You’re being melodramatic, and that’s not you.” Dean began rubbing his arms up and down Castiel’s soothingly and Castiel leaned into Dean with the warmth of it. They were so close, their foreheads bumped. It was an intimate position for two people who weren’t dating, but neither of them moved to break the contact. “I believe in you Cas. You’re a star. You used to be my secret, the star that lit up my world alone, but you’re not my secret any more. Everyone knows how bright you are.” Dean’s hands slid from his arms to cup his face. “So you’re going to go out there, and you’re going to shine. Because you don’t know how not to.”

Castiel’s big blue eyes searched Dean’s a few more times before he nodded, small determined movement. He was no longer scared. Well, maybe a little.

“Novak!” Becky, the stage manager called out. “We’re opening the curtain, shouldn’t you be on stage right? And Winchester, shouldn’t you be in the light booth?”

“Right,” Dean mumbled as he and Castiel broke apart. “I’ll see you after, okay?” Castiel nodded. He still looked a little queasy. “Hey,” Dean called back, a few feet away. “Just picture Raphael after you set that trap for him, and his pants fell down in front of the entire school assembly.”

Castiel’s grin lit up the dim off-stage area. “Not quite the same as picturing them all naked,” Castiel mused.

“It’s better,” Dean finished with his own grin.

“Oh for Pete’s sake, we’re going to be late! Have your epic gay love after the final bow. C’mon Novak,” Becky said, grabbing Castiel’s arm and dragging him away, his blush matching Dean’s. Poor guy just went from terrified to happy to mortally embarrassed in a matter of a few minutes. Perhaps that counts as some sort of acting warm up?

Perhaps it did, if Castiel’s performance was anything to go by. He  _was_  Hamlet. Dean might be a little biased, but he honestly believed it was the best performance of Hamlet in the entirety of the 400 years or so that it’s been performed. Castiel’s rough voice played nicely into the drama and the torment of Hamlet, and his ability to display such an emotional range, to go from angry to vengeful to thoughtful and sad in the blink of an eye was impressive.

His toned runner legs also looked pretty damn good in those leggings or tights or whatever the hell they were.

Dean didn’t witness the standing ovation that he knew was happening, as he was busy leaving his friends to man the lighting by bolting out the light box door, down the stairs, and through the corridor to the back stage area. Castiel was just coming off from his final bow with the rest of the cast and crew, the curtain now closed, when Dean broke through the side door. Castiel was grinning like a loon when he turned and saw Dean. Dean rushed, and they met somewhere in the middle of the stage left wing, Dean scooping Castiel up into his arms and planting the biggest, messiest kiss on Castiel’s lips.

Castiel was panting and beaming down at Dean while the entire cast and crew cheered loudly and obnoxiously. Sure, it wasn’t exactly professional to be so loud backstage, where the audience, who was still filing out, could hear them, but it was a high school production and they’d easily assume it was the celebration for a job that was definitely well done.

Somewhere, a picture flash went off, and a squeal that sounded ridiculously like Becky’s ripped through the wings.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Dean told Castiel. “I wanted to do it before you went on stage, but I was afraid it would mess you up.”

“It would have made Hamlet’s Oedipal complex and confusion a little more obvious,” Castiel agreed. “But tomorrow night, you are kissing me good luck before the show.”

“If not more,” Dean added with a leer. Couldn’t leave Castiel with an awkward boner right before going on stage, right?

“If not more,” Castiel agreed.

Turns out, hot romantic interludes with your boyfriend were  _exactly_  the best way to cure stage fright.


End file.
